Forbidden Love
by ZVArmy
Summary: When Stephanie McMahon and Triple H are put into a storyline together in late 1999, will Vince McMahon realise that he is about to start his daughter on the road to breaking his own golden rule about never dating a wrestler?


_P_ _lease note: Any opinions expressed by characters in this piece do not reflect the opinions of the author, particularly in reference to Test and Chyna, may they both rest in peace. Also, I will be trying to refer to people by their character names wherever possible._

* * *

Sighing inwardly, Stephanie McMahon wished that there was a way to turn her ears off. Being driven to the arena in the limo with her father was fair enough, if only he'd just wait until they got there to start losing his cool with people over what was going to happen on the Raw show that night. When the subject of her father's rant at whoever was on the other end of the phone changed to her storyline, she gave in to the inevitable and listened in.

"This angle with Test and Stephanie is flopping too," Vince snarled into the phone. A pause. "I don't give a shit if we've been working on it for two months, it's not going over the way we wanted. It's just a romance story, and it's fucking boring people." Another pause. "Well I don't think it's working. I think it was a mistake to put the push on Test and give this to him in the first place, so we're going to change it up and make it something that people want to watch. I want ideas by the time I get to the arena." Another pause. "Well you're my head writer aren't you? It's what you're paid for. I want an idea that we can work with, and it better be good." Vince angrily hit the button to end the call and dropped the cell phone into his lap.

"I think you're being harsh, dad," Stephanie said. She was enjoying playing out her storyline romance with Test, who was a genuinely nice guy to work with. The current situation was that Test and Stephanie were engaged and planned to get married live on Raw in a few week's time, but that now seemed to be rapidly heading west. "People do like our storyline, and Test's better in the ring than you're giving him credit for. I know you're worried about the ratings with Austin getting surgery soon, but I don't think changing what's going on with Test and I is the way to go to deal with it."

She might as well have saved her breath because Vince gave no consideration to what she had to say. His mind was made up. "The decision's been made," he told her dismissively. "It's being changed. I want something better than a simple wedding, and that's and end to it."

"Great," Stephanie mumbled to herself sullenly, making sure it was loud enough for her father to here.

* * *

"What's up, H?" Sean Waltman said as he walked into the locker that he was sharing with his long time friend, Hunter Helmsley. "Word is Vince is losing his shit again." The news wasn't meant to be a surprise.

Hunter didn't even stop unpacking his things from his large gym bag, such was his lack of reaction to the news. "Been the same way the last few weeks," he said. "The guy wants to chill the fuck out before he has a stroke or something. It's hardly like the ratings suck, is it?"

"From what I heard, he's changing up some of the angles."

That got a reaction. Hunter rounded on his friend and demanded, "He's what?"

"Big changes, apparently," Sean said, shrugging.

The news made Hunter instantly angry. He was in the middle of his first run as the WWF Champion, feuding with the soon to be absent Steve Austin as well as The Rock and Vince's on-screen character, Mr McMahon. There was no way he was going to see those plans changed without putting up a serious fight. Whatever problems Vince had with recent shows, Hunter knew for damn sure that his performances had not been at fault. "There's no way he's going to fuck with my title run," he growled.

"Don't shoot the messenger, man," Sean said, holding up his hands defensively. "And I didn't even say your program was being changed. It might not be. Hell, it probably isn't. All I know is he's in a meeting, talking about making changes."

Hunter picked up his half-empty gym bag and hurled it against the wall with a roar of anger and frustration. "This is all I fucking need," he exploded.

Sean felt for his friend, knowing that there was more behind the outburst than McMahon and his tinkering with creative. Other problems had been on his mind of late too. "Things still not going well with Jo?"

With a sigh that almost seemed like resignation, Hunter shook his head. "Going well? They're barely going at all. Every time we're around each other we just end up having these stupid fuckimg arguments, about nothing most of the time. I just have the feeling that we're coming to the end."

Hunter had been with Joanie, known as Chyna in the WWF, for more than three years, but it was no secret to Sean that his two friends seemed to be growing apart, as emphasised by the fact that lately Hunter was sharing his locker room rather than Jo's. It was a very difficult situation for all involved.

"I'm sorry, man," Sean said. "If there's anything..." He was cut off by someone knocking on the door.

With a look to the heavens that seemed to ask if these things were happening to test him, Hunter walked over and opened the door. Shane McMahon was standing there. "Hunter, how are you?" the boy wonder asked pleasantly.

"Been better, Shane," Hunter replied with brutal honesty. "What's up?"

"Vince asked me to come get you. We're needed in a creative meeting, right away."

The fact that Shane used his father's name rather than calling him dad was the furthest thing from Hunter's mind; he could see his title run going up in smoke, and for no good reason too, as far as he was concerned. Calling on his last reserves of patience, Hunter managed not to bite Shane's head off. "Okay, lead the way. Do you know what's going on?"

"Not yet," Shane replied evenly.

Two minutes later they arrived at a closed door which had a plaque beside its frame to let everyone know that it was 'Conference Room 3'. "This is the one," Shane announced unnecessarily, just before he pushed the door open. Even that was enough to grate on Hunter's severely frayed nerves, the fact that he had no personal problems with Shane not withstanding. Not saying something sarcastic took a lot more effort than it should have done.

When he followed Shane into the conference room, Hunter wondered what the hell he had been called into. Vince was there, at the head of the table of course. Sitting to his immediate left was his head writer, a woman no one liked, probably not even Vince himself. Next to her was Stephanie McMahon, with her on-screen fiancee Test, whose real name was Andrew, sitting beside her. If nothing else, having Stephanie there provided some eye candy to enjoy while his ambitions were destroyed, but what did Stephanie and Test have to do with it anyway? If Vince intended putting the title on Test, Hunter decided that he would seriously consider committing suicide out of principle. Andrew wasn't a bad guy, but in Hunter's opinion he didn't have half the talent required to be a main event guy. If it came to it, he was prepared to say so too.

"Hey, Hunter," Stephanie said with a smile.

Hunter didn't know her well at all, having rarely exchanged more than a few words of greeting when passing her in a hallway or ending up in line next to her in catering. There was no doubt that she was beyond fully hot, but he had never shown more than a passing interest because he had been taken. Plus there was the fact that everyone knew that making a move on McMahon's daughter would probably be an efficient way to commit career suicide. _You're still taken, asshole,_ he told himself. _Things might not be going great right now, but there's no past tense to it. Imagine if you weren't though, and you could score with Steph? It'd almost certainly be a great fuck, and it'd at least give the old bastard a reason to bury you._

"Stephanie," he replied with a smile smile that hoped looked professional and no more. As he pulled out a chair to sit opposite her, he turned his attention to the boss with a polite nod. "Vince."

"Take a seat, Hunter," Vince said gruffly, wanting to get right down to business.

Stephanie watched Hunter sit down and pull his chair forward a little so that he could rest his huge arms on the table. As always when she was around him, Stephanie very much liked what she saw, not that she could allow herself to show it. Her father had been more than clear that there was one golden rule when she'd been given an on-screen role as well as her job in the accounts department back at the office. The rule was that she was forbidden to so much as think about dating a wrestler. _Sorry, dad. I can do all the thinking I want, and there's nothing you can do about it. How is this guy wasted on Chyna anyway? What did she do to strike so lucky?_

"Here's the deal," Vince said, causing everyone to focus fully on the meeting at hand. "This whole thing with the Stephanie and Test wedding isn't going over as well as I wanted. I don't think the majority of our audience wants to see a traditional romance. So, we're changing it up." Barely leaving a pause for that to sink in, he looked at his head writer. "Ronda, you said you've come up with something, and these are the people you wanted in here, aside from Shane who always sits in on these meetings. Well, let's hear it."

Hunter's interest had picked up as he'd listened to that opening statement. It sounded like he wasn't here to find out that he was dropping the title after all. Instead it was something to do with changing Test's storyline with Stephanie, which had to mean that Test's push had been thrown in the trash. Shame. But what did it have to do with him?

All eyes now turned to Ronda Rousey, the head writer. Much like everyone else, Hunter didn't like her attitude or the way she spoke to people a lot of the time. She'd had the one good idea to do a rivalry between Mr McMahon and Steve Austin a year or so earlier and since then she'd thought that she was hot shit. The promotion to head writer hadn't done anything to change her mind either. As usual, she had what could be at best described as a stern expression on her face. At worst it could described in a much less pleasant manner.

"We've only had an hour or so to brainstorm on this thing," Rousey began. "But, one idea stood out and I decided it was good enough to put forward. If we had more time flesh it out some..."

"Just tell us what the damn idea is," Vince snapped, lacking patience as always.

Rousey's expression soured even more, but she did as she had been told. "Alright, so the problem is we've already gotten Stephanie and Test engaged and talking abouyt setting a date for a wedding on Raw. So how do we stop that from happening? The relationship hasn't been in any trouble, so a regular breakup would look rushed at best. But we've got another idea. What if Stephanie couldn't marry Test because Triple H married her first?"

There was a moment of silence while everyone including Vince exchanged confused glances. "Right, that makes a lot more sense," Test said sarcastically. "Oh yeah, I forgot I married Triple H, how stupid of me."

"He has a point," Vince said to Rousey, "But you have to have thought about that one before you brought the idea in here."

"Of course I did," she replied, shooting a vicious glare down the table at Test. "What I'm talking about is Stephanie getting married to Triple H without her knowledge. It works into the McMahon - Triple H rivalry that we already have. McMahon's there as the proud father to give away his baby girl when Hunter's music hits. He comes out and crashes the wedding and he announces that he already married Stephanie. It would best if it had happened without her knowledge."

Everyone pondered that for a moment. Stephanie was very keen on the idea of working with Hunter, so she made the decision to speak up first, in favour of the idea. "I think you might be on to something there, but there are two obvious questions. We know the why, to get at Mr McMahon, but we don't know the how. And also, what about Stephanie? She's not just going to be okay with the whole thing, obviously."

"Exactly what I was thinking," Vince said. The hot tempered edge had largely disappeared from his voice.

Hunter's mind was racing, trying to figure out how it might be possible to marry someone without their knowledge. Beside him, Shane was doing the same thing. "How do you get someone to say I do without them knowing about it?" he muttered. "Doesn't seem possible to me."

Hearing him put it like that turned on a lightbulb in Hunter's head. "What if she didn't say it?"

"What do you mean?" Vince demanded as Stephanie gave Hunter a confused smile.

"Thinking aloud here, so bear with me. Stephanie doesn't know any of this is happening. The only way I can think of for that to happen is that she's been drugged and taken to one of those weird drive through wedding places like they have in Vegas. But if that was the case then she obviously couldn't say I do. What if I said it for her?"

Rousey was making notes on the brainstorming session as it progressed. Never one to avoid an idea that appeared ridiculous on paper, Vince now seemed to be warming to the discussion. "How would that happen and not seem utterly ridiculous? Sell it to me."

"Why don't we try it out?" Hunter suggested. "If I go over and sit next to Stephanie..."

"Go ahead," Vince instructed and then gestured for Test to vacate his seat. "Swap seats."

"This all sounds dumb to me," Test said as he stood up, not that anyone paid much attention.

"We'll need a convertible for this, so we can film with the top down and be able to see Hunter and Stephanie clearly," Rousey said, barely glancing up from her note taking.

"Okay, so picture the scene," Hunter said, pleased to have effectively taken control of the meeting. _That's the difference between me and guys like Test. I don't just sit there looking dumbstruck, I show initiative._ Sitting down beside Stephanie, he got a nose full of her perfume, which smelled very nice indeed. She turned to him and tried not to laugh at what they were discussing. Part of Hunter felt bad for thinking about how sexy she was, but then there was nothing criminal about window shopping was there?

"So I've got to pretend to be unconscious?" Stephanie asked rhetorically. "Shane, you can be the minister, if that's what they're called at a drive through."

"Alright," Shane grinned.

"Right," Hunter said, "Steph, if you can lean into me and rest your head on my shoulder. It will need to look at least a little bit convincing."

Stephanie closed her eyes, nestled against Hunter and rested her head on his shoulder. Neither of them knew that the close contact was stirring something within the other. Both of them had to put conscious effort into not letting anything show.

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Shane laughed. "Do you Stephanie, take Hunter to be your husband?"

Doing his best to imitate a woman's voice, speaking out of the corner of his mouth, Hunter replied, "Yes, I do. I love him very much."

Vince laughed heartily at that, which didn't really surprise anyone. The boss had a strange sense of humour at times. "That didn't sound anything like a real woman, but I like it anyway. Ronda, we'll go with that."

Stephanie had returned to her regular sitting position, somewhat reluctantly. "But how does Steph get drugged in the first place?"

"Something in her drink at the bridal shower," Rousey said, as if it should have been blatantly obvious.

Vince clicked his fingers in satisfaction and nodded. "Good. Yes. We planned for some video segments for the bridal shower anyway, so we can work it in there. Hunter can drop some money on the bartender to do the job for him."

While those details were being discussed, Stephanie's thoughts had turned to the long term. "Then what?" she asked her father. "Hunter and Stephanie are married, then what?"

There was a moment of silence while everyone thought about that one. Shane was first to speak. "We could be McMahon - Triple H on pay-per-view. It'd probably be the December one by then. Armageddon, right?"

Vince nodded his confirmation. "You're thinking Mr McMahon somehow wins and the marriage is annulled? That would be the stipulation."

"No," Stephanie objected, surprising everyone. "That's a waste of the angle. The match is a good idea and so is the stipulation, but what if Hunter won?" Then her eyes lit up and a mischievous grin appeared on her face. "What if Steph cost her dad the match and sided with Triple H? Like, she wanted to be married to him for real?"

"Oh," Vince said, genuinely surprised. "That's good. A heel turn for Stephanie. Yeah, that is good. We could do away with those conservative clothes we've been having you wear and you could stop playing the sweet and innocent little daddy's girl too. You could become a real nasty bitch. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree as they say."

"I'd love that, I really would," Stephanie said enthusiastically. "I always wanted to be a heel, and I despise the outfits I have to wear at the minute. Ugh... They're like Grandma's clothes."

Hunter had to agree. Stephanie's chosen attire, such as she was wearing now, often left a lot less to the imagination than what she was currently being given to wear by the WWF. When he had been summoned to the meeting, the last thing he could have imagined was not only keeping his title, but also getting the boss's daughter for an on-screen wife too. The WWF could be a strange and unpredictable place, that was for sure.

Rousey spoke next. "If Stephanie costs her old man the match, why don't we have Mr McMahon not be seen again, or have him storm out in disgust, something like that? If Shane wasn't around either, that would leave Stephanie, and therefore also Triple H in charge. We'd be looking at a new era."

 _So that's why he pays her so much and puts up with her attitude,_ Hunter thought. _That's a stroke of genius right there._

"Oh, dad, we have to do that," Stephanie said, almost bubbling over with excitement. "Can we please do that? It sounds so good. Hunter and Stephanie ruling with an iron fist, going against all of the faces on the roster, especially The Rock."

Hunter could tell that McMahon liked it. How could he not? It had ratings written all over it, and that was why he had called the meeting in the first place. The boss turned to him for his opinion. "Hunter?"

"Let's do it," he replied with enthusiasm. "I think we're really onto something with this."

"Shane?" Vince asked, turning to his son.

"Yep," Shane nodded simply.

"Alright, Ronda, get to work writing all of this up in detail. I want something on my desk Wednesday morning." Bringing that part of the meeting to a close, Vince used two fingers to point to Stephanie and Hunter and then gestured towards the door. "You two can go. Stephanie, you've got your segment to film, but I want the two of you to get together later and see if there are any further ideas you can come up with for this thing. This heel turn was your idea so you might as well have some input into how we take it forward. The rest of us need to come up with something for you, Andrew."

Hunter glanced at Test as he stood up. _See you in the mid-card, buddy. Bad luck._ When he reached the door, Hunter held it open for Stephanie to leave first and managed not to take a glance at her ass or her long, shapely legs as she walked past him. After all, the old man's beady eyes might have still been on them.

"Wow, Hunter, that wasn't what I expected at all," Stephanie said excitedly after he had closed the door behind them.

"Nope," Hunter grinned. "I thought I was going in there to be told I was dropping the title."

"Drop the title?" Stephanie laughed. "Why would dad want you to do that?"

 _Good question,_ Hunter thought. _Why did I think he was going to do that? Who else would he give it to? Rock, maybe? Oh well, it doesn't matter now._ "Your dad can be crazy sometimes," he said, deciding to go with a joke.

"Well that's definitely true," she admitted with another chuckle. After a short pause, she let out a theatrical groan. "I hate sitting in meetings with that woman. She really gets my back up."

Knowing that she was talking about Rousey, Hunter agreed. "Me too. She sits there with a face like a bulldog licking piss off of an electric fence."

Stephanie burst out laughing at that, and its infectious nature made Hunter laugh also. He noticed the way that her nose wrinkled slightly, finding it strangely attractive. "I'd better go," she said when she got control of herself again. "I have a segment to film, but I'll come find you later and we can sit down and talk over ideas like dad said."

"Sure," Hunter said, playing it cool. "You know where to find me." He turned and walked away, heading back to his locker room. Although he resisted the temptation to glance back and check, he had the distinct feeling that Stephanie was watching him leave. That was interesting.

Especially as he was right. Stephanie watched him leave, finding it impossible to remove the smile from her face. One of the things she liked most in a man was for them to have the ability to make her laugh. Hunter had just ticked that box. That was interesting.

* * *

 _A/N: A one shot for now, but I may revisit it and make it a longer story at a later date._


End file.
